Dr. Rogers is Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas, Denton. Dr. Drogin is a member of the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. Ms. Otal and Ms. Dean are doctoral students in clinical psychology at the University of North Texas, Denton.
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law. 2020 Jun;48(2):226-236. doi: 10.29158/JAAPL.003912-20. Epub 2020 Feb 12.
The capacity of arrestees to comprehend their rights adequately and to waive them intelligently remains largely unexamined by most defense attorneys and forensic practitioners. Although much is now known about comprehension, only recently has forensic research emerged on reasoning. This archival study utilizes an extensive dataset of 847 pretrial detainees who were administered the Standardized Assessment of Miranda Abilities. This study focuses on how forensic practitioners can evaluate misperceptions that may have contributed to highly consequential decisions to cooperate with law enforcement without seeking legal counsel. Specific items from the Miranda Acquiescence Questionnaire of the Standardized Assessment of Miranda Abilities clearly identified detainees with impaired reasoning. Two important patterns of misperceptions were observed: adversarial perspective on arrest and trusting law enforcement. For instance, more than 20 percent of detainees with impaired reasoning wrongly believed that cooperating with police could only have positive outcomes. Even more troubling, more than one fourth of detainees erroneously believed that they must always comply with police requests, which obviously could entail self-incrimination. These findings are then placed in a broader context when examining the professional roles of forensic practitioners in recognizing, understanding, and evaluating for impaired abilities.
大多数辩护律师和法医从业人员在很大程度上仍未充分研究被捕者充分理解自身权利并明智放弃这些权利的能力。虽然现在已经了解了很多关于理解的知识，但直到最近才出现了关于推理的法医研究。这项档案研究利用了一个包含 847 名审前被拘留者的广泛数据集，他们接受了《标准米兰达能力评估》的测试。本研究重点关注法医从业人员如何评估可能导致与执法部门合作而不寻求法律建议的高度重要决定的误解。《标准米兰达能力评估》中的米兰达同意问卷的具体项目清楚地确定了推理能力受损的被拘留者。观察到两种重要的误解模式：对逮捕的对抗性观点和对执法部门的信任。例如，超过 20%的推理能力受损的被拘留者错误地认为与警方合作只会有积极的结果。更令人不安的是，超过四分之一的被拘留者错误地认为他们必须始终遵守警方的要求，这显然可能导致自证其罪。在审查法医从业人员在识别、理解和评估受损能力方面的专业角色时，将这些发现置于更广泛的背景下。
